https://irrationalfear.substack.com/p/when-science-turns-into-censorship
As an Earth scientist, my life’s work revolves around challenging established ideas, driven by evidence and curiosity. I’ve witnessed first-hand how questioning accepted narratives opens doors to profound discoveries. Yet today, I’m seeing science itself weaponized against critical thinking.
As a graduate student, I was fortunate to work under an advisor who was at the forefront of a paradigm shift in how we understood the earliest chapters of our planet’s history. Back then, we were challenging the long-standing image of a hellish early Earth, the so-called “Hadean” period, named, quite literally, after the god Hades. It had long been assumed that this era was inhospitable, devoid of oceans or continents, and simply too hot to support life. Why? Because there was no rock record to prove otherwise.
But then came these little minerals called zircons.
Primarily from the ancient Jack Hills of Western Australia, these tiny crystals told a different story. A story of a cooler, wetter, more habitable Earth over 4 billion years ago. The Hadean, we learned, wasn’t hell at all. It may have had oceans… maybe even continents. A Nature paper, co-authored by my then-officemate, who later became my beloved wife and the mother of our two sons, was featured in the New York Times the year I began my PhD.
That shift took time and faced resistance… but it happened the way science is supposed to work, through evidence, debate, and a willingness to challenge orthodoxy.
That experience shaped my view of science forever. It taught me that truth doesn’t always wear a name tag. Sometimes it comes from the edges, the outliers, the people with inconvenient data. Which is why what I’m seeing now in climate science, the way dissent is being hunted down, cataloged, and erased… is both disturbing and deeply personal.
I was recently made aware of a tool called “Hot Air,” developed by Tortoise Media. It’s pitched as a public service, a sleek, data-driven platform designed to track climate misinformation across the internet. But dig a little deeper, and it becomes clear that this isn’t about truth… it’s about control. This tool claims to monitor “climate denial, delay, and control” narratives… categories so vaguely defined they could easily apply to anyone questioning climate policy, data interpretation, or mainstream narratives. Sound familiar… yeah, people like me.
When I searched the database, I found over 100 entries tagged with my name. But here’s the kicker, the vast majority of them weren’t even posts I authored. They were replies to my posts, often posts simply linking to peer-reviewed research or offering scientific critiques, and yet the replies, not mine, were attributed to me. This is not just bad methodology… it’s slander by algorithm.
Let me ask a simple question. What other field of science spends millions of dollars building AI-powered tracking systems to silence and discredit those who raise questions? No public databases are shaming quantum physicists for debating string theory. No websites cataloging every tweet by Flat Earth believers. Why is it only climate science that behaves like a fragile dogma instead of a robust discipline? What exactly are they so afraid of?
And who, exactly, is behind this effort?
Let’s start with the money. Tortoise Media, the group that built this so-called public good, is funded by a blend of private capital and climate-interested backers, including Octopus Energy. The financial backing by Octopus Energy, a company directly profiting from climate policies it champions, exposes a glaring conflict of interest. What’s being packaged as impartial journalism is, in reality, strategic lobbying disguised as truth-seeking.
